everywhere i call here in my city quote me 400 bucks and above to replace pads and rotors all around (to oem)..i looked around on the net and found i could get cross-drilled and slotted rotors and HPS pads for about 400 and total wit bleeders shipped to my house for 460.
1) is this a good price from shops to replace all-around oem brakes??
2) is 460 good for the performace brakes?
3) is it hard to do this change bymyself(considering i have never done it) while i still have hub over rotor.
4)any advice or ideas are welcomed thankyou

 

Don't "DIY" it! Take it to a shop.

 

what year is the car?

 

its a 96 honda accord ex sedan

 

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Why pay for somethign that you can do yourself???

For the prices, IMO drilled/slotted rotors are a waste of money as the rotors themselves tend to crack, I would go with a brembo blank rotor. Check out http://www.importrp.com for some great prices. May I ask why you're getting/thinking about slotted/drilled rotors?

First thing I would do is make sure you have good power tools and or breaker bars since brake components suffer from heat and cold and the bolts tend to be a PITA, also get yourself a repair manual (helms, haynes, chiltons etc)...this will help a lot and will answer all your questions.

 

Hardest part will be p ullin the hub out to get the front rotors off. Other than that its an easy diy. If I were you I would at the very least change the rear rotors/pads myself and let someone else do the fronts.

Brembo Blanks club member #2

 

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To the orignal poster:

It's not as bad as some people make it seem. It can be a PITA at some points. Click here and go to about the middle of the thread to see a quick step-by-step I posted, sorry no pictures. It's just a quick overview that will help you get an idea of whats involved. Just do a search in the Accord forum and you'll see MANY threads that discuss front brake jobs. Read through them and get a good idea of whats needed and problems others have had. Then decide if it's something you can do yourself or if it's something you'd rather not try at this time.

As for the drilled & slotted rotors, I wouldn't. If the holes and slotts are done correctly it increases the chance for cracking like .ken was saying. I would just go with some Brembo blanks and a good set of pads. Also, don't forget to replace all the brake fluid. I assume you would since you are replacing the bleeders but you didn't list it so I figured I would just make sure.

also, if you plan on doing more work on your car, maybe think about investing in a Helms or at the very least a Haynes/Chiltons manual. The Helms is going to be your best bet as it shows you, in very detail, how to do many jobs on your car. I don't like the Haynes or Chiltons manuals but they are better than nothing I guess.

 

thanks alot, for all youre inputs and advice. i am new at this and am no where close to being mechanically gifted. i will buy the helms to at least see wuts up wit my car. i knew about the hub over rotor thing and have researches it, yet most of the people who do it are mechaniclly inclined , in which i am not... i wanted the drilled and slotted rotors, becuase i thought it would be an upgrade, some say it is others say it isnt. guess ill stay wit blanks wit some hawk hps pads. as for tryin it myslef...im scured.lol. this is my daily driver and all i have if i brake it then im in some ****.sooo there goes that idea. i lern frm watching not frm reading books or lectures, but ne ways thanks alot really!!!

 

400 isnt really a bad price, that includes new pads and rotors right? thats more than enough to stop well.

As far as doing it yourself, its pretty simple, I'll tell you in a few steps, these are the tools you need.

a big ******* hammer, 19 for lug nuts, 17 for balljoints and the bolts that hold the caliper and the bracket, you'll need a 14 for the the 4 bolts on the face of the rotors, a 12 for the 4 bolts in the back and a 36 mm for the axle nut, a 10mm for the brake line bolts and a balljoint fork to simplify life. Its also a good idea to purchase new cotter pins, I never like to reuse them, and they are so cheap its not even worth to use over. this is for the front, I cant tell you for the back off of the top of my head. now, do this.

take off the cotter pins and throw them out, you got new ones, remember? there is one on the balljoint for the upper control arm (uca), one on the balljoint for the tie rod (tre) and one on the balljoint on the lower control arm (lca). Take off the LCA balljoint nut and the TRE nut, now take off the UCA nut, but leave it on just about 2 threads, you'll love me for this, haha. Grab your balljoint fork and put it between the balljoint (any of them) and the arm, wack it with a huge *** hammer and set it free, now do the other two, notice how it was going to fall but the nut that you left on caught it? this is why we do this. Now, leave the nut on and take off the 2 17s for the caliper and set it aside, dont let it hang, now take off the 17s on the caliper. set that aside, use the 10 to take off the brake line bolts, just the 2 10s that hold onto the shock, now, hold the assembly and take off the top nut, it should come off and you're golden, now for the harder part.

grab the assembly and flip it around, there are the 4 12s that you need to take off. take them off. now, look at the hub and clean it, you'll see there is a piece of metal from the hub, an outer racer for the bearing, you need to get something that is the same size as the inner bearing and put it on there and WACK the inner bearing out. now, replace the rotors and repeat these steps backward. alright, thats about it for the front. someone else can tell you the rear.

 

yeah, it can be intimidating doing things for the first time. I know it was for me. But for me, I'm the opposite of you. I do a lot of reading and searching and seem to get a good feel of what needs to be done before I start a job. Usually something always pops up different but for the most part reading really helps me out. My girls brother is just the opposite of me so when we work on either of our cars together or something, I'm usually the one looking at the manual seeing what needs to be done and he under the car trying to figure it out his way and sometimes we use a combination of the two to get it done. It seems to work good for us.

I wouldn't do it that way if you plan to reuse those balljoint boots. It's a good chance you are going to tear the boot. Then you need to buy new boots and it can be a bit of a pain to get those clips back on if you don't have to tool. The way I do it, and I've heard others do it the same way, is to take a mini sledge or other big hammer and hit the side of the knuckle where it mounts to the LCA. You will see a small ledge sticking out on the side, thats where I hit it. A couple hits usually pops it free and no busted boot. I would leave the nut flush with the bottom of the thread to not only catch the knuckle when it drops but to also protect the threads from being damaged if you miss the knuckle.

Also, I don't see the point of taking the entire knuckle off the car. Just pop the lower balljoint free, then remove the axle from the hub, then put the lower balljoint back into the LCA. Now you access to the four bolts on the back side of the knuckle and you don't have to remove the upper balljoint or remove the brake line from the knuckle. You might not have to remove the steering rod balljoint either but you want to to get more range of movement in the knuckle.

also, you confused me with this statement...

If you remove those four bolts on the rear of the knuckle, the hub/rotor/bearing assembly should fall away from the knuckle, if not hit the rotor (your replacing it anyway) with the hammer and it should fall away. Then you just unbolt the rotor from the hub, slide the rotor past the bearing and reassemble in reverse order. The way you made it sound is like those four bolts removed the hub from the bearing. You don't have to remove the hub from the bearing if the assembly falls away from the knuckle when the four bolts on the back are removed.

If the hub is pulled from the bearing though, the inner race comes off with the hub. To get that off, you need a press. I socket and a hammer isn't going to get that off. And if that bearing isn't moving after unbolting those four bolts on the back of the knuckle, then your going to need to pound it out or have someone with a press push it out. Pretty much at that point, you need to take the entire knuckle off the car and take it to a machine shop to have it disassembled. That isn't as bad as it sounds though. When my bearing wouldn't come out, I took both to a machine shop and they took the rest apart and then put everything back together in about an hour and charged me 25 a side. But you also need someone to take you to a shop since your car can't obviously be driven so that makes it somewhat difficult for some people.

 

GENTS THASNK ALOT.. i was goin to try it this weekend but considerin that its hard enough for me to put legos together i went ahead and paid for it. good thing i did. it cost me $681 for all oem all around. and then found out that my left frnt axle snapped and that in less then two weeks it would have seized. soi had them replace that too. total $812.00&lt;&lt;**** there goes my months work. but at least i know its done right and i am safe. i copied and pasted all your instructions to a notpad file. perhaps ill try it next time. but then again by then ill prob want a swapp. ive invested like 3gs in the past 6 months on this damn car and i am no where near close to even half ways on it.
&lt;&lt;&lt;this is becoming real expensive

 

touring, good looking on the hammer/sledge part, you can do it that way also, I just get tired of hitting it with the hammer, so I said to use a fork, haha. As for taking off the whole assembly, I was in shop so it was easier for me to take the whole assembly off since it only took a few extra minutes but simplified the process of taking out the hub.

As for taking out the outer race and inner race seperate, I'm not a fan of that, I like to take them both out at the same time. and sorry if I was confusing, I dont know how to say things to well, I am more of a showing type or peson.

 

no worries as far as understanding. i am do it and lern kinda person not read it and lern!!! maybe cuz i just dunno how to read. too muchhh budd. but o well. i do thanks alot to all the people who tried to help out,, i find more help on here then i didi on honda society. all they didi on there was flame and flame some more. so i just flamed bak.. but again thanks

 

well, glad to hear you are satisified. Once you get more comfortable with doing things to your car, you'll see that a lot of things aren't as hard as they might seem at first.

I've never been onto Honda Society but this is a great board.

 

i think that no matter where i go ill bump into people that think they know it all and fell that thier intelligence is holy enough to flame others that may seek knowladge. but its always nice to bump into cool people that are willing to share thier experiences. for that i thank all!!